Russia may bring back gay blood donor ban

Russia could soon reintroduce the ban on blood and organ donations for gay men, but offer them free treatment facilitating ‘conversion’ to heterosexuals, a senior Russian MP has said.

“We will suggest amendments to the law on donors that
reintroduce homosexuality to the list of contraindications for
blood donations in Health Ministry instructions,” said State
Duma MP Mikhail Degtyarev, who is also a Moscow mayoral candidate
from the populist-nationalist party LDPR.

The politician told a news conference in Moscow that in his view
such a step could not be considered discriminatory, as 65 percent
of all HIV-positive persons are homosexuals. Degtyarev did not
give the source of this statistics.

Degtyarev also added that the lower house was working on the
initiative to offer gays voluntary anonymous consultations with
psychologists, psychotherapists and sexologists that would help
them to “return to normal life and become heterosexuals, as
are 95 to 99 percent of our citizens.”

“The law presumes that they should not hold gay pride events
when children can see them. But it is very possible to hold them
at night, with flashlights and without amplifiers,” Degtyarev
explained.

The Health Ministry’s press secretary Oleg Salagay told reporters
that the experts would study the suggestion if it arrives in due
order. The official said that when deciding on limitations
lawmakers should consider both the human rights issues and the
possible health risks. He noted that Russia had already had a ban
on blood donation for gays, but it was lifted several years ago
and in many countries, including the USA, the ban on blood and
organ donation for homosexuals is still in force, despite being a
topic of debate.

The bans Salagay referred to are the rules America’s Food and
Drug Administration (FDA), introduced in the early 1980s in an
attempt to curb the spread of HIV and AIDS.

“Men who have had sex with other men (MSM), at any time since
1977 (the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the United States)
are currently deferred as blood donors. This is because MSM are,
as a group, at increased risk for HIV, hepatitis B and certain
other infections that can be transmitted by transfusion,”
reads the statement on FDA’s official website.

Many other nations, including Israel, Germany and France also
have indefinite deferrals for gay men willing to donate blood or
organs. Some countries, like UK, Australia and Sweden, impose a
limited time deferrals ranging from one to five years from the
date of last gay sex.

One of the best-known leaders of Russian LGBT community, Nikolay
Alekseyev, said that the suggested measure was both
discriminatory and ineffective, and promised to fight against it.
The activist said that the limitations should be based on the
future donors’ promiscuity rather than their sexual orientation,
and recalled that the ban used to exist in Russia, but was lifted
in 2008.

“We’ve lived without these restrictions for five years. It has
not aggravated the situation with diseases. Modern methods of
diagnostics allow early detection of infected blood and if they
impose the ban this would only deprive the patients of blood from
some donors,” the Interfax news agency quoted Alekseyev as
saying.